Monthly Archives: May 2016

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FINALS MINIMUM DAY #1 !

Message from Mr. Tyler:

Today is the finals day for Mock Trial. Due to the fact that 94% of our mock trial team were seniors this year we have taken our final already. Today we will be taking the last of our end surveys and I will finish getting your feedback on improving the pathway. Additionally, we will finish looking at video clips from a film entitled “Judgement at Nuremberg”. I am thinking of adding more video clips in next year so that mock trial members can better understand the roles in trial and how demanding they can be morally, ethically, and emotionally.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), is the best film ever made about judges and judging. Based on a script by Abby Mann, it uses as raw material the trials of Third Reich judges in 1947 and 1948.Spencer Tracy is Judge Dan Haywood, the thoughtful American faced with condemning men with whom he senses he has a great deal in common. Richard Widmark is the eager and tactless military prosecutor, Maximilian Schell, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal, is the committed advocate Hans Rolfe who attempts to mount a defense for a client (Burt Lancaster) who does not want to defend himself. Many famous folks appear in the film, including Judy Garland as a woman whom one of the defendants had sentenced for violating the notorious Nuremberg Laws, Montgomery Clift as a mentally disabled victim of Nazi sterilization policy, and William Shatner (in his pre-Star Trek period) as a charming American officer charged with looking after Tracy. The film poses important questions about the responsibility of judges who disagree both philosophically and morally with laws they are mandated to enforce. The contrast and the similarities between the judgers and the judged are particularly poignant.